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Kuo reckons this tech will launch in the 14.1-inch MacBook Pro and a refreshed MacBook Pro 16, as well as a 27-inch ‌iMac Pro‌, a 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌, a 10.2-inch ‌iPad‌, and a 7.9-inch ‌iPad‌ mini. This belief was recently backed up by a report from Taiwanese publication DigiTimes. Packing so many LEDs into a MacBook Pro display will result in exceptional HDR performance, wide color, and high contrast, while also avoiding the burn-in problems that OLED panels can experience. All in all, that should help take Apple’s MacBook Pro displays to another level entirely.
There are a few caveats. For one thing, Kuo understandably expects such advanced tech to cost an arm and a leg, so it won’t make it to every Apple device. Kuo also predicts a launch date of late 2020 to somewhere around the middle of 2021, meaning we may have to wait a little longer for this super display. Although Kuo doesn’t believe the Mini-LED MacBook Pro will be delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, a recent China Times report claimed the opposite, suggesting mass production of the panels won’t start until 2021. We will have to see who turns out to be correct.
It’s no secret that Apple has become frustrated with Intel, as the chip manufacturer has often struggled to meet deadlines, resulting in MacBooks launching without the latest and greatest processors inside them. It seems that Apple has just about run out of patience, and could well be looking elsewhere for its MacBook Pro processors. The question is which alternative it’ll settle on.
Though sticking with Intel is most likely, the leading replacement candidate is AMD. In February 2020, MacOS beta code was unearthed that referred to numerous AMD processors and graphics chips, including “Renoir,” which is a code name for AMD’s Ryzen 4000-series processors. The U series chips offer up to eight cores and 16 threads while using a tiny 25 watts of power. While it’s possible Apple was just testing them out and has no intention of using them in future Macs, Renoir’s power-to-performance ratio seems perfect for a top-end machine like the MacBook Pro.
Apple demands very power-efficient parts for the MacBook Pro to enable it to be almost silent during most operations, and these chips would be easily efficient enough for Apple’s taste. Bringing these eight-core U-series processors to the 13-inch MacBook Pro could revolutionize what creative professionals could do with a smaller laptop.
What about ARM? Rumors of Apple switching its processors from Intel to ARM have been floating around for years, but it looks like late 2020 or early 2021 could be the time this finally becomes reality according to a report from Ming-Chi Kuo. Both Bloomberg and Axios have reported that Apple is well underway with the switch, codenamed Kalamata, and Apple has proved that its own ARM-based chips are capable due to their superb performance in devices like the iPad Pro.
There’s another reason Apple may switch to ARM, and interestingly enough it comes not from the world of hardware — but of software. The clue here is Project Catalyst, Apple’s ongoing effort to make iOS apps work on the Mac. The project has started with iPad apps making the leap first, and supposedly will expand to include iPhone apps in 2020. The eventual goal is to allow any app work on any Apple platform. Apple could be hoping to facilitate this by outfitting all of its devices with ARM chips. This would make life massively easier for app developers, who could work on apps knowing they’d be running on the same architecture regardless of the device.
While Apple’s ARM-based A-series chips have shown impressive performance, it’s unknown how well they would stack up against the high-end Intel or AMD chips worthy of the MacBook Pro. Former Apple senior executive Jean-Louis Gassée has raised an interesting point: Ampere Computing already sells high-powered ARM chips that can compete with Intel Xeon processors, thus potentially paving the way for even the Mac Pro to switch to Apple-made chips.
Added to that is a report from Bloomberg that claimed Apple is actively working on an ARM MacBook with a 12-core processor inside, and that the company is looking beyond 12 cores for future models. If such a processor were to make it to the MacBook Pro, things could get very interesting.
Still, we expect that Apple will probably debut ARM chips in the MacBook Air (potentially at the Worldwide Developers Conference), which is a safer bet given in the MacBook Air performance is less important, then perhaps transition the MacBook Pro to ARM at a later date.
There are a few other things that we’d love to see on the 2020 MacBook Pro. While not all of these have been rumored, we wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them in the next iteration of the device.Top of our list has to be Face ID. While the iPhone has had Face ID (and Windows has had Windows Hello) for a while now, Apple’s MacBooks have been bereft of this tech for far too long.

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